All gold shines

I had an old man in the bank the other day, and when I asked him if there was any particular way he would like his cash, he said to me, "It doesn't matter. All gold shines." I loved that line! And how true is that? Yes, gold is shiny, there's no doubt there.

Gold, silver and platinum make great additions to an investors portfolio. From time to time we've had clients bring in gold and silver bars, also known as bullion for trading purposes. Did you know that the standard size for gold bullion weighs 10 ounces? This is also referred to as the .995 fine bullion bar. And if you were wanting a little bit heavier of a portfolio, you can also purchase your gold bullion in kilobar size, which is the equivalent of 32.15 ounces of the shiny stuff.

Standard sized silver bullion, on the other hand comes in a heftier size of 1000 ounce bars. Of course silver is priced considerably lower than gold, by about $650.00 or so an ounce currently. Mind you, the experts say that our silver resources are shrinking quickly, and that is sure to boost prices in the coming years.

Platinum, just like gold comes in standard sized bullion of 10 ounces. However, platinum resources are much more rare, and because of this, it's worth almost double the price of gold. No wonder why platinum jewelry is so dearly priced. I guess that's why they're all called precious metals!

If you'd like to stay up to date on the latest prices for gold, silver and platinum, go where I go -- to the Monex Deposit Company. They've been dealing with precious metals for over 40 years.

Olivia

Silver coins

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to purchase about five rolls of quarters that were all older coins -- silver coins. I bought those rolls of quarters and brought them home. I don't really know why I did, other than the fact that they were older coins and I wanted to have a look through them to see just how old some of them were. Most of them were from the early 1960's and a few were from the 1950's. They were in pretty good shape I suppose. I'm not an expert at old coins and their conditions, but they seemed to be pretty good to me. I checked out what some of these coins were going for on eBay, and discovered all the different grading that is taken into account to decipher the value of an old coin. At that point I realized that I really didn't know much if anything about old coins, other than what coins were silver and what coins weren't. Upon further surfing through the auction listings I found that some people were selling bulk lots of silver coins, basically for the silver content, and not really for the purpose of coin collecting. I don't recall what the going price of silver per ounce was at that time, or what the total weight was of this lot, but I do remember I made a nice little profit when I sold those coins as a bulk lot of silver!

Investing in silver is a great investment. There is a big demand for silver and the availability of it is rapidly depleting. Prices of silver are steadily rising. It's now going for almost $15.00 per ounce, which is up around $5.00 since June of last year. This is something I regularly check the price of, since I have a few silver bullion bars in my safety deposit box. You can check out the latest silver prices at Monex, which is one of the largest and most experienced firms in America that specialize in precious metals for individual investors like you and me. Since 1967, Monex has sold billions of dollars worth precious metal bullion and bullion coins to over one hundred thousand investors. They have some great information on investing in precious metals, and particularly the current silver trend. Check them out for more information on investing in silver coins and bullion bars.

Olivia